Free Republic

PYD Co-leader Salih Muslim In an interview with ANF news agency, Democratic Union Party (PYD) Co-leader Salih Muslim said that a victory in Raqqa was important for the safety of Rojava as the war would be pushed away from the borders of the autonomous region and the people of Raqqa will be free from the Islamic State (IS).“Our democratic federal system will encompass an even greater area and the people of Raqqa are welcome to become a part of it, if they wish to do so,” the co-leader said, adding that about 75% of the forces participating in the Raqqa...

Turkey’s plans to expand its Operation Euphrates Shield in northern Syria and isolate Kurdish forces in the region appear to be backfiring. After Turkey liberated al-Bab from the Islamic State (IS), it turned toward Manbij, which is controlled by the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) and its Syrian allies, only to encounter US flags northwest of the town and Russian and Syrian national flags to the southwest. Now a similar scenario is being played out in Afrin. On March 20, YPG spokesman Redur Halil announced Russia would deploy troops to the Cindires district of Afrin province. The statement was followed by...

Other sculptures at the festival in Istanbul include John Lennon, Nelson Mandela and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. One of the highlights at a Turkish chocolate festival has been U.S. President Donald Trump — made of cake icing. It took Turkish chef Tuba Geckil two days to make the imposing bust of Trump, clad from mid-torso in an edible jacket and striped tie.

Wednesday afternoon the story broke in Baton Rouge media that the Kenilworth Science & Technology School had been raided by the FBI. The FBI indicated that the raid, which evidently was conducted to gather material evidence in the form of documents and computers, was not a matter of public safety. As a result, it probably was not related to a report earlier this year that a teacher at the school was accused of having inappropriate pictures of children on his cell phone. Had those charges stuck, that would have been the second scandal of a sexual nature involving a Gulenist...

US State Department Acting Spokesman Mark Toner The United States State Department’s Acting Spokesperson Mark Toner called on European and Turkish government representatives to “tone down the rhetoric” in a press conference in Washington D.C. on Thursday.Answering a journalist’s question on whether he “agrees with the behaviour of the president of Turkey (Recep Tayyip Erdogan) who threatens Europeans every day,” Toner said “I think what we have said about some of the back and forth we’ve seen over the past couple of weeks [is] that we want to see everyone get along and tone down the rhetoric.”“Look Turkey is an...

A senior advisor to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has threatened the world saying, “No one in America, Europe or anywhere else in the world can even have breakfast comfortably if a hair on his [Erdogan’s] head is harmed.” Yigit Bulut, an outspoken figure and senior advisor to the president was responding to questions on Turkish state television TRT on Wednesday, when he made the comments. Answering a question about the latest restrictions from Europe and the United States, such as the prohibition of carrying electronic devices on flights from Istanbul to the UK and US or several European states’...

Turkish President, Recep Erdo?an on Wednesday, said that “If you continue to behave like this, not a single European, not a single Westerner will be able to take a step on the road safely anytime in the world,” to the European Union. This can be spun anyway the media likes, but it is clearly a direct threat if you look at the history between Erdo?an and ISIS. The comments came in response to Germany and Holland both blocking Turkish Ministers from holding rallies to support the Turkish president’s grab for power, which many suggest is the first step to complete...

Four Turkish soldiers and a military attaché who had applied for asylum in Norway following the 15 July coup attempt have been granted residence and working permits. Kjell M. Brygfjeld, lawyer of the five Turkish nationals, confirmed the decision which has stirred controversy between the NATO allies to Norwegian daily Klassekampen.Turkey had asked Norway for the extradition of the four soldiers and the military attaché, suspected of having participated in the failed coup. The decision to grant the suspects and their families, all living at secret addresses, asylum in Norway may thus further add to the already tense relationship between Turkey and Europe.Turkish...

Georg Restle Prominent German journalist, Georg Restle, on a programme aired on German state TV ARD compared imprisoned Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Ocalan and Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan asking, “Who is the real terrorist?”Commenting on a recent Kurdish demonstration in the German city Frankfurt on the Tagesthemen (topic of the day) programme Restle said:“The Turkish president [Erdogan] and his cronies are really angry that tens of thousands of Kurds living in Germany of which some carried posters of Abdullah Ocalan protested peacefully for their rights. The Federal German state is accusing these people of “supporting a terrorist organisation.”“One must ask this question”, Restle...

Picture from International Business Times Turkey has been crowned the ‘champion’ of Twitter bans as more and more accounts are being flagged up for ‘security reasons’, a report released by the social media giant shows.Twitter’s ‘transparency report’ announced that Turkey topped the list of countries that requested account closures, with Twitter closing 3,076 accounts in the last six months alone at Turkey’s request.Of these, 2,232 cases were requested by the government, police and other state institutions, and 844 were requested by the courts. A total of 8,417 tweets were also reported by Turkey, with Twitter closing 290 accounts and deleting...

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has warned the European Union (EU) that if the diplomatic spat between Turkey and several European countries continues, Europeans won’t be able to walk their own streets safely. President Erdoğan made the comments Wednesday in what is another increase of tensions between Turkey and the EU that began when Germany and the Netherlands banned several Turkish ministers from holding campaign rallies for the upcoming Turkish referendum. Erdoğan has threatened Europe before, but this time he threatened the safety of Europeans if the row continues, Die Welt reports. “If you continue to behave like this, not a single...

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan ramped up his anti-European rhetoric on Wednesday, warning that the safety of Western citizens could be in peril if European nations persist in what he described as arrogant conduct. Erdogan's remarks came amid tension over Dutch and German restrictions on Turkish officials who tried to campaign for diaspora votes ahead of an April 16 referendum on expanding the powers of the Turkish presidency. "Turkey is not a country that can be pushed and shoved, whose honor can be toyed with, whose ministers can be ousted, whose citizens can be dragged on the ground," Erdogan told...

<p>Washington -- Foreign ministers from 68 countries meet in Washington on Wednesday to agree on the next steps to defeat Islamic State, the first such gathering of the U.S-led military coalition since the election of President Donald Trump in November.</p>

It sounded dramatic: The leaders of 50 Syrian Arab tribes met in Sanliurfa, Turkey, and announced they would set up the Army of Al-Jazirah and Euphrates Tribes to end Russian and Iranian occupation of Syria and cleanse the Euphrates and Al Jazeera areas of the Islamic State (IS), the Kurdish nationalist Democratic Union Party/Kurdistan Workers Party (PYD/PKK), Hezbollah and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Sheikh Rafi al Raco Ukla represented the Shaitat tribe. In his opening speech at the March 14 meeting, he thanked Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia for their assistance and added, “The US supports the PYD. The PYD...

German national parliament Berlin, Germany (Photo: Jorge Royan). Germany has rejected more requests for arms exports to Turkey during the past 5 months than in five years between 2010 and 2015, German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung reported on Tuesday.The sharp increase in rejections, mainly handguns, ammunition and parts needed in weapons production, is due to “the risk of a deployment in the context of internal repression or the Kurdish conflict,” according to a written response by State Secretary Matthias Machnig to a question posed by lawmaker Jan van Aken.“Respect for human rights is a matter of particular importance for arms export...

The United Kingdom has followed the United States in preventing passengers on flights from some countries in the Middle East and Africa from carrying devices such as laptops and tablets in the cabin. The restrictions affect 14 airlines, six of which are based in the U.K. As in the U.S., the ban covers any electronic devices larger than a typical smartphone.

If you examine Erdogan’s past, it is no surprise that he is an Islamist. Erdogan is the product of a Turkish imam-hatip school. These are Islamic religious schools that aren’t quite the “madrassas” we’ve heard so much about since 9/11, but they are much like them. The imam-hatip schools reserve 30 percent of their students’ time for religious instruction. They teach Sunni Islamic law — Sharia law — as the exclusive legitimate source of authority. Those schools teach the political ideology we refer to as radical Islam. Erdogan repeatedly has made clear his allegiance to radical Islam again and again...

(Video detailing how Turkey plans to use the womb as a weapon of european conquest)

Al-Monitor has learned that US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is expected to travel to Turkey March 30. He will be the most senior US official to formally visit Turkey since the Donald Trump administration took office in January. A senior Turkish official who spoke on the condition of anonymity confirmed that Tillerson was expected to meet with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, among others. The official was unaware of Tillerson’s full itinerary but said it would not be unusual for the secretary to visit other countries in the region as well. The official declined to elaborate any further. In an emailed...

Filli Boya Paint, one of Turkey’s best-known brands of construction paints, produced a short video to celebrate International Women’s Day. Indeed, it has become a tradition in the last decade that male-dominated sectors, such as the construction industry and car manufacturing, honor women’s accomplishments in their field. This year's Filli Boya commercial was different, however. For starters, most of the speakers in the clip were middle-aged or elderly residents from rural areas. On top of that, the video gave voice to women and men from different regions of the country, identifiable by their attire. The ad was also intriguingly anti-government, but without mentioning the ruling Justice and...